Mark's CYCLING THE AMERICAS blog is here for all the latest on his current challenge, which is going incredibly well. He has summited Denali and Aconcagua, and is now cycling the final leg down to the end of his pan-American adventure. There are some spectacular images and video on the blog.

The closing date is the 8th of February which doesn't give you much time...

The theme of the game has to include an ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE.

What's useful is that they have made available a couple of documents which can be downloaded in PDF form. They can be used to help design a game structure even after the deadline, and even if the game doesn't actually get made: a STORYBOARD sheet is useful.

This relates to an earlier post on the Nintendo DS IMAGINE TEACHER GAME...

This may be an intriguing context for learners to explore and map out an issue, as gaming is an important part of youth culture...

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

While snowed into my Travelodge yesterday, I caught the second half of this programme and apart from Will Self with a beard, it also featured Danny Dorling talking about the age distribution of the UK, and a whole host of other interesting geographical changes that have happened in the first decade of the century.

Quite a lot on demographics, but also a lot on CULTURAL change in the UK

Monday, January 4, 2010

Geography of Sportunits frequently explore the locations of stadia, impact of the sport on globalisation, industry and the environment, and also the benefits and issues surrounding global or international sporting events such as the World Cup 2010.

Football is also a crucial part of popular culture in many countries of the world, inspiring passion and also a lot of violence in some cities.

For those who haven't heard (or are even remotely interested) I finally decided just after Christmas that what I really needed in my life was an iPhone. I opted for a 16Gb 3GS version in glossy white.

There are many reasons why I finally succumbed to the ever-so-shiny phone.

One of my thoughts was that I had seen geography colleagues using it in interesting ways in the classroom, and outside the classroom (the latter perhaps more than the former) and needed to investigate these by actually using them... and then reporting on them...

There were already some useful posts on the use of iPhones which have been building up over the last year or so since the 3G version of the phone was introduced.

Teachers using iPhones

Noel Jenkins posted an interesting thought on his DIGITAL GEOGRAPHY blog giving his thoughts - he hadn't got an iPhone at the time, but has now.

I also asked my PLN via Twitter, and got some recommendations. for apps.

Some of the websites which I use regularly also have iPhone apps, so I checked those out as well: FLICKR is my photo sharing APP of choice, and I also downloaded COOL IRIS for viewing them. Also the ANIMOTO app for watching videos I've produced, such as the movie for "a different view", and also Rain Today.

What is this blog about ?

Cultural Geography featured on the now-ex Pilot GCSE Geography Specification - that was my introduction to this area of geography. This blog started out featuring my findings, resources and images as I produced resources when teaching this unit for the first time. Some readers may disagree with what I call 'cultural geography' but I'm still relatively new to all this...

Some of the early content stems from ideas by Dr. Phil Wood , Senior Lecturer in Geographical Education at the University of Leicester.

The blog has now morphed into a general place to blog about geography and popular culture, as well as social science, mapping and a range of other cultural items of interest.